You have probably seen that image before, maybe in the closing montage of Dr. Strangelove. It’s from an American nuclear test in July 1946, “Shot Baker." 2/x

The military arranged a ghost fleet of empty warships off the shores of Bikini Atoll and detonated two large atom bombs there, to simulate a Soviet attack. They wanted to observe the damage to the ships. Baker was the second test. An underwater bomb. 3/x

The force lifted a 26,000-ton battleship into the air. A million tons of radioactive water rose in a column a mile high. Waves and “radioactive mist" immersed the target ships and turned them into “radioactive stoves” that would have killed any humans aboard. 4/x.

After the test, the U.S. military didn’t know what to do with all these highly contaminated ships. They decided to send many of them to the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco, because the Navy kept a group of radiation scientists there. Maybe they’d know? 5/x

So the radioactive fallout from the atomic tests was brought to San Francisco, on these ships. 6/x

At Hunters Point, the Navy tried to decontaminate the ships. It didn’t work. They were too radioactive. Contamination got spread around. Sailors’ clothing became radioactive and had to be washed in a special facility, a “Radioactive Laundry” or “Contaminated Laundry.” 7/x

In 1969, the Navy closed its radiological laboratories at Hunters Point. Many buildings were demolished. But radioactivity remained, in the soil and the drain lines. The Navy mostly left it there instead of cleaning it up. 8/x

And in later years, the Navy built some new buildings on top of the old soil. This was one of them. Building 606. Constructed in 1989. The Navy put it where the Radioactive Laundry used to be, in the part of the shipyard where the radiological laboratories were born. 9/x

You can see here the outline of the old Radioactive Laundry footprint (it was known as Building 503), contained within the outline of the larger new building, 606. (This is a Navy image from 2004; the green buildings are “radiologically impacted,” possibly contaminated.)

Ok. So the Navy builds this new structure on top of the former Radioactive Laundry in 1989. They scoop off the top 5.5 feet of soil, set it to the side, make a crawl space, and cover the crawl with a concrete slab. A prevention strategy. 11/x.

But they don’t check the soil for radioactivity. They don’t know what is there. 12/x.

Building 606 was originally supposed to support a retiring battleship; the battleship never comes. So it sits mostly vacant for six years. And in the early 1990s, the city of San Francisco starts eyeing it. It’s a huge empty building in a city without a lot of those! 13/x

Turns out that the SF Police Department is crunched for space. Their Tactical Division is spread across 4 locations in the city, with nowhere to train — specialized units like SWAT, the Honda dirt-bike unit, the bomb squad, the K-9 unit, the crime lab. 14/x

You see where this is going. The city leases Building 606 from the Navy in 1996, for below-market rent, because, well, it’s a Superfund waste site. And before long, more than 100 police officers and civilians are stationed in the shipyard.

In the lease documents, the Navy didn’t disclose that the building was on the site of a former Radioactive Laundry. They called it by a more innocuous name. 16/x

The Navy also didn’t mention that there were serious problems with lead and copper in the shipyard’s drinking water. They only notified the city months after the lease was signed. City was pissed when they found out.

So there were all kinds of problems at and around the building in the first few years cops were there — contaminated tap water, a dirty ventilation system, an accidental release of potentially fatal chlorine gas near the building, a fire at a nearby toxic landfill. 18/x

Some cops got sick. Coughs, headaches, rashes. But all the government agencies in charge of the building — the city, the Navy, the EPA — told the workers of Building 606 not to worry. They’re safe, everything is fine. Nothing to worry about. 19/x

The city dismissed the police employees’ health concerns. In a 2002 city meeting, one official called them “paranoid.” 20/x

But the authorities still didn’t know what was in the soil beneath and around the building, and the unknowns multiplied as years went on. A 2002 probe of that neighborhood of the shipyard found “moderately extensive” and “widespread” contamination from 2 radioactive isotopes 21/x

The Navy said in project documents that more investigation was needed at the police building — Building 606. Four years later, more investigation was still needed and hadn’t been scheduled. This is from a 2008 Navy document. 22/x

As far as we can tell, the soil under the building still hasn’t been checked. In 2011 and 2012, some soil next to the building was tested for radioactivity and given a clean bill of health. But the test was done by Tetra Tech, whose work across the site is now in question. 23/x

We sent long lists of questions to all the agencies involved. They said the building is safe and people working there haven’t been put at risk. There’s more in our full story! Please read and support local investigative journalism. sfchronicle.com/news/article/A… 24/x

For years, Tetra Tech & the Navy processed thousands of truckloads of contaminated soil right next door to a busy San Francisco office building, spreading radioactive dust into the air. New from @cdizikes
& me: sfchronicle.com/bayarea/articl…

I always like reading how other reporters first got into an investigative story so here is a sense of what the journey was like for us. 2/

This one grew out of an earlier piece on an unusual building at Hunters Point -- Building 606. The city started putting police employees there in 1997, using it as a HQ for tactical units & the crime lab. 100+ people worked there for years, 40 still do. sfchronicle.com/news/article/A… 3/

Chuck Todd, of all people, wrote a good piece about why the press should fight back. "The American press corps finds itself on the ropes because it allowed a nearly 50-year campaign of attacks inspired by the chair of Fox News to go unanswered.” theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Readers of “The Woman Who Smashed Codes”: I wanted to share something with you. It’s an email I received from the archaeologist and author Elizabeth Wayland Barber (elizabethwaylandbarber.com). It describes a 1959 meeting with William Friedman that she says changed her life.

I’ve been thinking about Barber’s story all week. It says so much about the Friedmans: how they lived, what they valued and found joy in, what they regretted. And their profound influence on others.

Also, this is quite a P.S. from Barber about her own struggles in a male-dominated field. For much of her career she published under the name E.J.W. Barber “so I would look like some British esquire” and the book would get reviewed.

We've seen this story before, when Pharoah looked at the Israelite people and saw that they were "too numerous," that they posed a demographic problem for his power, and decided that the solution was to oppress them.

We've seen this story before.

And when even oppression didn't work and he realized that the real way to terrorize a population was to go after their children.

Ok a little thread about crime in SF and why it’s so incredibly frustrating for the people who live here.

(Hopefully @LondonBreed will help? I know she cares a lot about this issue, hope she reads this thread) @hknightsf might be interested too.

Last month a lady named Linda rented a van from us for a few days. It was due back on January 31st. It didn’t come back. Instead, the next day, a guy we’ve never heard of called and asked to extend the rental... a month! This isn’t normal.

We know from experience this is very suspicious. We told them to bring the van back right away. He said they would be back the next morning. We knew that was unlikely. We were right. The next day came and went with no sign of the van.